Anchorites Balther the Presbyter and Bilfrid the Goldsmith

CONCERNING THE HOLY ANCHORITES BALTHER THE PRESBYTER AND BILFRID THE GOLDSMITH, IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND,

ABOUT THE YEAR 757.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Balther, Presbyter, in Scotland and England (Saint)

Bilfrid the goldsmith, in Scotland and England (Saint)

Section I. The Acts of Saint Balther. His feast day. His burial.

[1] We join together these holy anchorites whose exercise of the same virtues in life was also in the same century and region, and whose sacred bones after death were exhibited for public veneration in the same bier in the same church. Among them Saint Balther stood out by the dignity of the Presbyterate, Of these anchorites also called Baltherius and Baltere. About him Roger of Hoveden in the first part of his Annals, at the year of Christ 756, published this small eulogy: "In the same year Baltere the anchorite followed the life of the Saints, Saint Balther the Presbyter, and migrated to the Lord." Hoveden copied this from the History of Simeon of Durham on the Deeds of the Kings of England, whose words are: "In the same year Balther the anchorite followed the way of the holy Fathers, migrating to Him who reformed him in the image of His Son." But senior to these is Turgot, who flourished about the year 1100 as Prior of the Church of Durham and alone exercised the care of Christianity throughout the entire diocese, and was afterward assumed as Bishop of Saint Andrews in Scotland. He wrote a History of the Church of Durham, which we shall demonstrate was wrongly published under the name of the said Simeon, a monk and Precentor of Durham, in the preliminary Commentary on the Translation of the body of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, to be illustrated with his Life on March 20. This Turgot, therefore, because he saw the relics of Saint Balther translated to his own Church of Durham and preserved with the greatest veneration, as will be said below, wished to indicate some notice of his life, and prefixed this title to the second chapter of the second book of his History: "How a certain man of royal lineage fled to the peace of Blessed Cuthbert, and was dragged away from there, and how Bishop Cynewulf was thrust into prison on his account, and concerning the death of Saint Balther."

[2] Then at the end of this chapter the following history is appended: "When Eadbert reigned after Ceolwulf, Cynewulf received the episcopate of the Church of Lindisfarne, Under King Eadbert and Cynewulf, Bishop of Lindisfarne, which he held for no small time indeed, but harassed by many troubles of adverse events. For Offa, of the royal line, had fled to the body of Saint Cuthbert when enemies were pursuing him, and being dragged away thence by force, was killed by an abominable death. Whereupon King Eadbert, being offended, seized the Bishop and ordered him to be held captive at Bamburgh, with Friuthubert, Bishop of Hexham, administering the diocese of Lindisfarne, until the King was placated and Cynewulf, released from captivity, returned to his Church. In the seventeenth year of this Bishop's pontificate and the twentieth of King Eadbert's reign, He died on March 6 the man of the Lord and Presbyter Balther, who had led the anchoretic life at Tyningham, entered the way of the holy Fathers, migrating to Him who reformed him in the image of His Son, on the day before the Nones of March." From these things it is certain both that the day of death corresponds to March 6 In the year 756 or the following. and that the year was either 756, as indicated above by Hoveden, or at least the following year, 757. For when Saint Ceolwulf the King became a monk among the Lindisfarne monks in the year 737, Eadbert, son of his uncle, succeeded him, and when Saint Ethelwold, Bishop of Lindisfarne, of whom more frequent mention will be made below, died in the year 740, the aforementioned Cynewulf was substituted. Friuthubert was also already Bishop of Hexham before that, having been ordained on the sixth day before the Ides of September in the year 734, as all these things are read at the aforesaid years in Simeon of Durham's History of the Deeds of the Kings of England. In the manuscript Usuard of the Duke of Altemps at Rome, but augmented in England, the following is read at March 6: "In Britain, the deposition of Saint Balther, Presbyter and Confessor."

[3] Among the aforementioned histories -- both Turgot's on the Church of Durham and Simeon's on the Deeds of the Kings of England -- there exists at column 67 and following, under this title: "History of Saint Cuthbert, and the commemoration of the places and regions of his ancient possession from the beginning until the present time" -- which, however, is not indicated, nor the author's name, who seems to have lived long after Turgot and Simeon. In this history the boundary of the land of the diocese of Lindisfarne is described, and first that part is indicated which is contained on this side of the river Tweed in the present-day county of Northumberland as far as the diocese of Hexham; then that which lies beyond the Tweed in the neighboring part of present-day Scotland. And then is added: "all the land which pertains to the monastery of Saint Balther, which is called Tyningham, from Lammermuir to the mouth of the Esk." Buried at Tyningham, These territories are now in Scotland, where first toward the ocean is the province of the March or Merse, some inland part of which toward Lothian is still called Lammermuir. Then Lothian, In Lothian, now part of the Kingdom of Scotland, which is also called the province of Laudonia and Lothiana, is watered by the river Tyne, and before it flows into the German Sea, it washes the aforementioned monastery of Saint Balther and the town of Tyningham. The other and somewhat larger river of the said Lothian is called the Esk, the northern boundary of the diocese of Lindisfarne, where the mouth of the Esk is placed above. And all this land is said to have pertained to the monastery of Saint Balther.

Section II. The same saint honored under the name Baldred. Whether he was rightly considered a Bishop.

[4] On this day, March 6, on which Saint Balther died, Saint Baldred the Confessor is recorded in the ancient Martyrology printed at Cologne in the year 1490, Called Baldred by others, whom we do not consider different from Saint Balther. About Baldred, Hector Boece writes the following in book 9 of the History of the Scots, page 171: "In those times there lived, nearly contemporaneous with the holy men already mentioned, Saint Baldred, a Scot by race, a teacher of the Picts, who, when he had instructed the Picts in the true faith with pious labor, died in Bassa Died on the island of Bassa. (this is the name of a fortress in Lothian, the most fortified of all places by nature, situated on a very high rock more than two miles from the mainland, surrounded on all sides by the sea). And when the men of three parishes -- Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston -- contended for the carrying out of the funeral, each wishing that so sacred a treasure

should be honored in their parishes, and the matter was approaching almost to the point of offense, it was agreed by common consent that they should spend the following night attending with pious prayers and holding sacred vigils. The next day, whatever the bishop of the place (who happened to have come there to attend the sacred procession) should say ought to be done in the matter, they would carry out without dispute. When the night was spent, three coffins with three bodies, Whose body is asserted to have been tripled, decently adorned with sacred vestments, with no difference among them in size or color or any other respect, were found by the priests in the doubtful light. At the bishop's command, with the pious and joyful acclamations of the people, they were carried to the three neighboring churches, where the same funeral, by divine working, was celebrated in three places with splendid pomp. And the bodies, deposited in honorable sarcophagi, are honored in our age by the religious people with pious prayers. So much from Boece, whom John Leslie follows in book 4 of the Deeds of the Scots, under Aidan the forty-ninth King, where he comprehends in brief what was said in these words: "At the same time Baldred flourished, who, marvelously inflamed with desire to extend religion, turned to the Picts and trained them by his precepts to hold to the right way of Christ. About his body, found after his death in three places at once, wondrous things scattered through our histories are found." So he writes, and leaves us all in doubt about the tripled body of Saint Baldred or Balther. Nor is it an obstacle that they refer him to the seventh century, whom we have said flourished in the following one, since we know them to be little concerned about one century in that origin of the Christian religion, since on the same page in Leslie there is also appended Bathenus, called Baithene and Baterus by others, who died at the end of the sixth century as the second Abbot of the monastery of Iona, and is recorded in the English Martyrology and the Catalogue of Ferrarius on September 11, in the Scottish Menologium of Camerarius on the thirteenth of the same, and in Dempster on June 5 and 7.

[5] Indeed, he was considered a Bishop, Meanwhile a greater controversy arises because, citing the same Hector Boece, Baldred is called a Bishop by Dempster on March 6, whose words are: "At Preston, of Baldred the Bishop, whose body by divine power was found tripled to settle the disputes of the faithful." Preston itself is one of the three places in which the body of Saint Baldred is also said to be preserved, not far from the German Sea, between the overflowing rivers Tyne and Esk, to which latter it is closer. Meanwhile others also called him a Bishop: Hermann Greven in the additions to Usuard, the contemporary author of the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum, Canisius in the German Martyrology, and Ferrarius in the General Catalogue. Against all of whom it seems sufficient to set Matthew of Westminster in the Flores Historiarum, using these words: "In the year of grace 941, Anlaf, newly created King, while he was devastating the church of Saint Balther and burning Tyningham with fire, was soon seized by the judgment of God and miserably ended his life; and King Edmund, making for Northumbria, powerfully expelled Anlaf, son of Sihtric, and Reginald, son of Cuthred the King, and again subjugated the monarchy of all England" -- of which the last events are reported at the year 944 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist. But by a faulty chronology of ten years, these things from the cited Flores of the Westminster writer are reported in the Annals of Baronius at the year 951.

[6] Finally, a certain Life of Saint Baldred is reported in the Breviary of Aberdeen, And indeed as Bishop of the city of Glasgow. where he is said to be Bishop of Glasgow under King Aidan in the year 608 and successor of Saint Kentigern, whose Life, duly corrected in our Notes, we gave on January 13. We therefore append this epitome of his Life, but not sufficiently approved by us, and leave it to the Reader's judgment. It reads thus.

[7] "In the year of our salvation and grace 503, on the Ides of January, when the most reverend Father and Bishop Saint Kentigern, at the city of Glasgow over which he presided, in the one hundred and eighty-third year of his age, A disciple and Suffragan of Saint Kentigern, after various and very many miracles divinely shown through him, was translated by the power of the Most High God to the heavenly realms, joined to the angelic choir, Blessed Baldred, who had been the suffragan of the same Blessed Kentigern while he lived in the world, flourished in Lothian for his virtues and illustrious miracles -- a truly most devout man, leaving behind all worldly pomp and its vain care. Pursuing the divine John as much as he was able, he sought out solitary, deserted, and secluded places, and transferred himself to maritime islands. He used to dwell on the island of Bassa. Among these maritime islands he landed at one called Bassa, where he undoubtedly led a contemplative and strict life. There, through the long courses of time, he commended to memory the most blessed Kentigern, his teacher, by continual meditation upon the holiness of his life. Yet he did not cease to imprint the most bitter Passion of Christ above all his other meditations -- in fasting, weeping, and lamentation, in the secret of his heart, in vigils and assiduous prayers -- so greatly that he rendered himself pleasing and acceptable to God Himself and to people everywhere throughout the world. For indeed the parish churches of Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, And to cultivate three parishes of Lothian, which he had received from the said most reverend Father Kentigern to govern, and to whom the care of souls was committed by God's working, he by no means consigned to oblivion the preaching of Christ's faith to his parishioners; but he instructed and informed them with humility and devotion, as befitted a minister of God. And the sick, if he found any, he healed and restored to health by divine power with the word alone, with the intervening sign of the Cross. And among the other remarkable signs of his miracles, one sufficiently worthy of remembrance comes to be recited. Renowned for miracles, A huge rock of great natural size, which had remained fixed and immovable midway between the said island and the nearest land, presenting itself level with the waves of the sea, caused the greatest impediment to ships and other seafarers, who were sometimes accustomed to be wrecked with their ships. For these Blessed Baldred, moved by piety, He is believed to have transported a rock of the sea to the shore, determined to place himself upon the same rock. When this was done, that rock was immediately raised up from below at his command and, like a little boat driven by a favorable wind, approached the nearest shore. It remains there to this day as a memorial of this miracle and is called to this day the tomb or boat of Blessed Baldred."

[8] "But at last, reaching extreme old age through the labors and woes of this most wretched life, And having died at Aldham on March 6, in order to better instruct those he had had in his care, he determined to attend to the aforesaid church of Aldham. Not long after this, near it, in a little dwelling of his parish clerk, on the day before the Nones of March, with all patience and eagerness and compunction of heart -- while all mourned the departure from the fragile world of so excellent a pastor from his flock -- having poured out a prayer in farewell, he commended his soul to the Lord. When, I say, the parishioners of the three aforementioned churches heard that their most gentle and most meek pastor had ascended from this life to heaven, And with his body divinely tripled, they approached in three companies the place of the body of the most sweet Baldred, who, going back and forth to one another, requested the body for their respective churches with the greatest desire and insistently demanded it, so that the one they had had as Teacher on earth, they might have as a pious intercessor in heaven by showing him fitting reverence. When they could not agree among themselves, having taken the counsel of a certain old man, they left the body unburied through the night and all separately betook themselves to prayers, that the glorious God might of His grace send some sign as to which church the body of the holy man should be given. In the morning, Buried in three churches. a thing not frequently heard of appeared: assembling as before, scattered with their companies, they found three equal bodies prepared with a similar pomp of funeral rites. For which miracle they gave thanks to Almighty God and Blessed Baldred with the greatest joy, and singing and chanting psalms, each parish lifting up one little body with its coffin, they carried them to their churches with all reverence and honorably deposited them, where they are held and venerated to this day in the greatest honor and reverence."

[9] So far the epitome of the Life, in whose beginning it is said that Saint Kentigern departed this mortal life, having been translated to the heavenly realms, in the year 503; The error of the Scots regarding the age of Saint Kentigern but we judge he was born long after that year. For, as the ancient author of his Life asserts, as found in James Ussher, On the Origins of the British Churches, chapter 15, page 684, the man of God, going to Rome seven times, "unfolded to Saint Gregory, the special Apostle of the English, his whole life, his election and consecration, and all the events that had befallen him, in order." And the holy Pope, understanding him to be a man of God and full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, confirmed his consecration, which he knew to have proceeded from God, and at his many-times-repeated and barely-obtained request, supplying what was lacking in his consecration, destined him for the work of the ministry enjoined upon him by the Holy Spirit. Under the same Gregory, in the year 597, Saint Columba the Abbot died, with whom a conversation of Saint Kentigern is reported in chapter 7 of his Life, published by us on January 13. That King Aidan of the Scots grieved so greatly at the death of Saint Columba that he barely survived, John Mair reports in book 2 of the Deeds of the Scots, chapter 7; and that Saint Kentigern flourished under King Aidan, with this author and Adam King, the heading of these lessons in the Calendar indicated, placing the death of Saint Baldred at the year 608. Mair himself at the said chapter 7 reports the following: "At the same time Saint Baldred lived, And of Saint Baldred or Balther. whose body, intact, is said to be deposited in three churches not far distant, namely Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, of which the first two villages are a thousand paces from Glegorno, the third one league. Saint Baldred taught the people by word and example in these three places." So Mair. All of which concerning Saint Baldred we wished to present; whom, these things notwithstanding, we do not consider different from Saint Balther, and that he cultivated the said places of the province of Lothian, which then belonged to the kingdom of the Northumbrians and were subject to the Bishops of Lindisfarne. Since the writers of Scottish affairs had less knowledge of these, they could very easily err by one or two centuries -- they whom we have shown to be so grossly mistaken about the age and death of Saint Kentigern their own Bishop.

Section III. Notice of Saint Bilfrid, the goldsmith. A codex of the Gospels adorned with gold and gems.

[10] We infer that Bilfrid's anchoretic life was spent in the diocese of Lindisfarne from what will presently be said, but we have not yet been able to find it assigned to any particular place. That he was a distinguished goldsmith is indicated by the above-mentioned Turgot in the same book 2 of the History of Durham, Saint Bilfrid, anchorite and goldsmith, on the occasion of the sacred body of Saint Cuthbert, which would have been carried to Ireland during the time of the Danish devastation, had not a storm arising at sea required it to be brought back. "During which tempest," says Turgot in chapter 11, "when the ship was turning on its sides, a text of the Gospels, beautifully adorned with gold and gems, falling from it, was carried into the depths of the sea." But

as is said in the following chapter, by divine admonition they went three days later to the sea, and saw that it had receded far more than usual, and walking three or more miles, The codex of the Gospels unharmed for three days in the sea, they found the same holy codex of the Gospels, which so preserved outwardly its beauty of gems and gold, and inwardly its former beauty of letters and leaves, as if it had not been touched at all by the water... "This is certainly believed to have been accomplished by the merits both of Saint Cuthbert himself and also of those who were the makers of the book, namely the venerable Bishop Eadfrith of revered memory, who had written this with his own hand in honor of Blessed Cuthbert, and also his successor the venerable Ethelwold, who had ordered it to be adorned with gold and gems, and also the holy Bilfrid the anchorite, who, carrying out the wishes of the one who commanded with his skilled hand, Had adorned it with gold and gems. had composed the outstanding work: for he was preeminent in the art of goldsmithing. These, equally burning with love for the beloved Confessor and Bishop of God, left behind this work so that their devotion toward him might be known to all posterity." Furthermore, Still preserved at Durham about the year 1000: as the said Turgot testifies, "the aforementioned book is preserved to this day in this Church of Durham, which has merited to possess the body of the same holy Father Cuthbert" (and indeed, when in the year 1004 the body of Saint Cuthbert was displayed, it was found at his head), "in which, as we said, no sign at all of damage by water is shown."

[11] John Selden, in his prefixed judgment on the author of the History of Durham and other associated writers, on page 25, treats of this codex long submerged in the sea and asserts that the same things already related are transmitted in almost the same syllables in the manuscript History of Durham preserved in the Cotton Library, folio 18. He judged that the aforementioned Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, who had written it with his own hand in honor of Cuthbert, and Ethelwold his successor, He did not live in the seventh century under Saint Cuthbert, who had ordered it to be adorned with gold and gems, and finally Saint Bilfrid the anchorite, who, carrying out the wishes of the one who commanded with his skilled hand, had composed the outstanding work -- that all these had accomplished these things while Cuthbert was still alive and for his honor, namely while Eadfrith and Ethelwold were monks of that Church, or about the year 680. But here everything must be understood as the words themselves express. Saint Cuthbert ceased to live among mortals on March 20 in the year 687. He was celebrated in life and after death for illustrious miracles; and among other things, eleven years after his death, his body with its vestments was found completely uncorrupted under Bishop Saint Eadbert, whom the above-mentioned Eadfrith succeeded in the year 698. Eadfrith lived until the year 720, and in honor or for the public veneration of Saint Cuthbert wrote with his own hand, or at least left at his death thus written, the Gospel, But in the eighth century under Saint Ethelwold. which his successor Ethelwold ordered to be adorned with gold and gems. Ethelwold died in the year 740, on February 12, and although he is here called only "venerable," he has nevertheless been enrolled among the Saints, as is evident from his Life, which we published on the said February 12. Whence it is established that Saint Bilfrid the anchorite, preeminent in the art of goldsmithing as was said above, flourished at the same time. To what age he afterward attained, and in what year or on what day he died, we have not yet found.

[12] We add, moreover, what Selden saw fit to note: that this same codex, so ancient The codex of the Gospels still exists in the Cotton Library, and always held at such great value, is doubtless still to be seen among the treasures of the Cotton Library. For there is kept a most beautiful codex of the Gospels of that century, most splendidly written and adorned, to which the prefaces and canons of Eusebius and Jerome are prefixed, with a Saxon interlinear version by the Presbyter Aldred also inserted. And from certain items from the end of the codex that are cited, there follows there, he says, a Saxon writing in which express mention is made of the already-mentioned labors of Eadfrith, Ethelwold, and Bilfrid in writing and adorning that codex, in accordance with what Turgot narrates, With an ancient notice of Saint Bilfrid. as also of the Presbyter Alfrid, both of the version and of the Saxon writing and other connected matters; but it was written after the death of Cuthbert and Eadfrith. And having transcribed the Saxon text, he adds the following from that codex: "Eadfrith, Ethelwold, Bilfrid, Aldred constructed and adorned this Gospel for God and Cuthbert." And finally Selden concludes that this is the very same codex of Cuthbert thus mentioned by Turgot and Simeon, which anyone who has examined so venerable a monument must easily enough concede. And these are the only things we have thus far been able to obtain about the deeds of these Saints, whose Life and miracles we do not doubt were formerly written down.

Section IV. The bodies of Saints Balther and Bilfrid elevated. Some bones translated to Durham.

[13] After two or more centuries had elapsed since the death of the anchorites Saints Balther and Bilfrid, the body of Saint Cuthbert was translated to Durham together with the episcopal see, and Aldune or Aldwin was established as the first bishop. When he died in the year 1018, The Presbyter Elfrid adds a Saxon version to the codex of the Gospels: and that Church had been without a Pastor for nearly three years, Edmund was ordained. Under this Bishop, says Turgot in book 3 of the History of Durham, chapter 7, "there was distinguished in that same Church a certain Presbyter who by pious and religious works had stood in great familiarity with Saint Cuthbert, named Elfrid, son of Weston." Where, after his virtues are broadly indicated, it is added: "He was very zealous in educating boys for the service of God, taking care to instruct them daily in singing and reading and to train them in ecclesiastical offices." From which it can be inferred that he was the author of the Saxon version in the said Gospel, which is also confirmed by the following. He elevates the bones of Saints Balther and Bilfrid for veneration, "For he, commanded by a vision, traveling through the ancient sites of monasteries and churches in the province of Northumbria, raised from the earth the bones of the Saints which he knew to be buried in them, and left them placed above ground to be shown to the people and venerated: namely the bones of the anchorites Balther and Bilfrid, and also of Acca and Alcmund, Bishops of Hexham, and of King Oswin, and also of the Abbesses Ebba and Ethelgitha. Of all their relics he carried some portion with him to Durham He places some at Durham with the body of Saint Cuthbert, and deposited them with the body of Father Cuthbert." The same things are narrated with scarcely any change of words in the History of the Translation of the body of Saint Cuthbert from the island of Lindisfarne to Durham, which we shall publish from a manuscript codex on the oft-mentioned March 20, and at the same time we shall vindicate the History of the Church of Durham for the said Turgot. He brought it down to the year 1096, that is, to the death and burial of William I, Bishop of Durham, who died on the fourth day before the Nones of January and was buried on the sixteenth before the Kalends of February.

[14] In the elevation of the body of Saint Cuthbert, made by the said Turgot, then Prior of Durham, in the year 1104, approaching the opened casket, they beheld there so many relics of saints that the narrowness of the casket could by no means hold them, unless the holy body of Father Cuthbert, leaning on its side, had permitted them more ample space to rest together with it on either side... "They wished therefore to lay the holy body on its back, which was turned on its side; but because they could not do this conveniently on account of the multitude of relics placed around it, it was decided that, having moved the holy body aside a little, In the year 1104, placed separately: they should gather the relics of the Saints together, and having deposited them separately, the incorrupt body should henceforth keep its place of rest... When therefore they raised the venerable body from the place of its repose, they reverently laid it down on the pavement on spread-out tapestries and cloaks, and having removed the relics of the Saints, they replaced it in its shrine... Furthermore, of all the relics that had been found there, they placed only the head of the blessed King Oswald beside the body of the glorious Bishop, just as it had been before. For the other relics, having been removed as already said, were solemnly arranged otherwise and are preserved in a prominent place in the church." All these things are narrated in these words in the History of the aforesaid Elevation or Translation, which we shall give from several manuscripts on the oft-mentioned March 20, and at the same time we shall vindicate the History of the Church of Durham for the said Turgot. He brought it down to the year 1096, that is, to the death and burial of William I, Bishop of Durham, who died on the fourth before the Nones of January and was buried on the sixteenth before the Kalends of February.

[15] An appendix is attached to this History of Turgot from page 59, and more probably by Simeon the Precentor of Durham, concerning the four Bishops of Durham who succeeded the said William -- namely Ranulph, Geoffrey, William II, and Hugh, elected on the eleventh before the Kalends of February in the year 1154. By Bishop Hugh, He, besides very many buildings erected in the city and diocese, extended the church in which the body of Saint Cuthbert rests with a distinguished work, and made it both longer and brighter, adding marble brought from afar with which the entire building was adorned, and multiplying the stained-glass windows around the altars with distinguished painting. Furthermore he constructed With the bones of Saint Bede, a most precious reliquary, excellently fabricated from the purest gold and the finest silver and adorned with precious stones in a marvelous work, in which he deposited the bones of the venerable Bede, Presbyter and monk of Jarrow, together with the relics of many other saints. In a precious reliquary, The relics detained in the Church of Durham are then listed in this order: "The body of the holy Father Cuthbert, whole and entire with flesh and bones, as if he were still alive. The head of Saint Oswald, King and Martyr, which was placed in the shrine with the body of Saint Cuthbert. The bones With the relics of other saints. of Saints Aidan, Eadbert, Eadfrith, and Ethelwold, Bishops; of Balther and Bilfrid, anchorites. The body of the venerable Bede, Presbyter and Doctor. The bones of the holy women Ebba and Elfgita. The body and vestments of Saint Boisil, who had been the teacher of Saint Cuthbert. The bones and hair of Saint Ethelwold the Presbyter, who succeeded Saint Cuthbert in the anchoretic life. The head of Ceolwulf, King and afterward monk in the Church of Lindisfarne." So much for that. Of the said Saints: Oswald the King is venerated on August 5; Aidan on the 31st of the same month; Eadbert on May 6; Ethelwold on February 12; Bede on May 27; Ebba on April 2 and August 25; Boisil on January 25; Ethelwold the Presbyter on March 23; King Ceolwulf on January 15. The feast day of some does not occur, as we noted above concerning Saint Bilfrid, Why Bilfrid is joined with Saint Balther: whom we have joined with Saint Balther because both lived as anchorites at the same time and in the same province, and because their sacred bones are reported together by the already-mentioned authors. In the same way, Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne may be joined on May 6 (unless meanwhile another day should occur) with his predecessor Saint Eadbert. Furthermore, Turgot in book 1 of the History of Durham, chapter 11, treats of them thus: "Eadbert for ten years, after whom Eadfrith for twenty-two -- two holy and worthy bishops -- presided over the Church." In the same way, Saint Ethelgitha or Elfgita the Abbess, on account of their joined bones, may be proposed for veneration together with Saint Ebba the Abbess, unless she seems rather to be referred to Saint Edith.

[16] We indicated above that some bones of Saints Acca and Alcmund, Bishops of Hexham, were also translated to Durham by the Presbyter Elfrid. Of these, Saint Alcmund is venerated on September 9, and Saint Acca on October 20, Referred by Maihew to November 27, the day on which he also died. But Edward Maihew in the Trophaea Anglicanae of the Order of Saint Benedict referred Saint Acca to November 30; and since from the Life of Saint Cuthbert published by Capgrave he learned that together with the relics of Saint Acca, the bones of the anchorites Saints Balther and Bilfrid had also been translated to Durham, and since he did not know their feast day, lest their memory should perish, he wished to insert them in his Trophaea on a day convenient to himself. For what reason, Since he had five empty days between November 24 and 30, he chose the middle of these, November 27, to which day he refers them under this title: "Concerning Saints Balther and Bilfrid, anchorites, and the Translation of their bodies and those of other Saints." He then cites the words of Capgrave in the Life of Saint Cuthbert, and adds that since among all these saints, whom we accurately described above, Balther and Bilfrid are named first, this is an indication that they should be held among the principal saints. Concerning Saint Balther he also adduces the words of Hoveden related above. He notes finally that he believes they were monks themselves, As Benedictine monks: since in those centuries people scarcely ever proceeded to the anchoretic life except from the monastic one; and immediately he is quite certain that they should be ascribed to the Benedictine Order. We determine neither violently to oppose nor easily to subscribe to either part of this conclusion, aware that in Scotland and Northumbria the rule and statutes of Saint Columba the Abbot and of Saint Cuthbert the Bishop were observed, as will be said in connection with the latter's Life.

[17] Hugo Menard, although elsewhere he was accustomed to copy Edward Maihew, here did not dare to trust the report of Capgrave, Saint Balther also by Menard, omits Bilfrid, and inscribed in his Benedictine Martyrology at November 27 Saint Balther the anchorite in England, citing in his Observations the authority of Hoveden, who, however, does not call him a saint. By Bucelinus, But Gabriel Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menologium at the same November 27 writes: "In England, of Saint Balther, monk and hermit, who in the year of Christ 756 shone forth, conspicuous for the extraordinary holiness of his life." Then by way of proof he adds: "Mart. Bened. Gall. Menard. Roger. Hoveden. vol. 2. Sanct. Ord. etc." These seem enigmatic, perhaps to be explained thus: the Benedictine Martyrology of the Frenchman Menard, or printed in France; then Roger of Hoveden; and finally volume 2 of the Saints of the Order -- but by whom and when it was printed is hidden from us. Colgan also inserted the above-mentioned Life of Saint Cuthbert, as reported by Capgrave, And by Colgan, in his Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, and in note 32 observes that Balther is referred by Menard to November 27. But not sufficiently mindful of himself, the one whom he had correctly published from Capgrave as Bilfrid, in the said note he calls Wilfrid, and being much concerned Who wrongly adds Wilfrid. whether this is Saint Wilfrid, Bishop of York, either the first or the second of that name, he inclines more toward the second, if indeed he was an anchorite -- from which anxiety we release him and others reading that note.

[18] Finally, Saint Baldred is commemorated on March 29 by David Camerarius in the Scottish Menologium, Baldred on March 29. by John Wilson in the English Martyrology of both the first and second editions, and, citing Wilson, by Ferrarius in the General Catalogue in these words: "In Scotland, of Saint Baldred, Confessor." In his Notes he distinguishes him from the Baldred referred to on March 6, whom he had believed to be a Bishop. But both Camerarius and Wilson identify them as the same person, citing the passages from John Mair, Hector Boece, and John Leslie, which we produced above.

CONCERNING SAINT GODEGRAND, OR CHRODEGANG, BISHOP OF METZ ON THE MOSELLE,

IN THE YEAR 766.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Godegrand, or Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz (Saint)

Section I. Epitome of his Life described by Paul the Deacon.

[1] Paul, son of Warnefrid the Lombard, Deacon of Forum Julii, in book 6 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 16, asserts that he wrote a book on the Bishops of the city of Metz at the request of Angilramnus, a most gentle man and distinguished for holiness, An epitome of the Life written by Paul the Deacon. Archbishop of the aforesaid Church. And since the said Angilramnus was the immediate successor of Saint Godegrand, Paul the Deacon was able to learn excellently from him and others the deeds of this Godegrand, which we describe here. Having narrated the Acts of his predecessor Sigibald, he proceeds thus.

[2] "Now here the outstanding man Chrodegang, to be extolled with all praises, is elected Bishop, a native of the district of Hesbaye, Saint Godegrand, of illustrious lineage, Referendary and Bishop, born of a father named Sigrammus and a mother named Landrada, of Frankish stock of the highest nobility. He was nurtured in the palace of the elder Charles himself, and served as his Referendary. At length, in the times of King Pippin, he merited the episcopal dignity. He was indeed most illustrious in every way, resplendent with every nobility, handsome in appearance, most eloquent in speech, versed in both the native tongue and Latin, a nurturer of the servants of God, not only a sustainer but also a most merciful guardian of orphans and widows. Since he was rich in all things, being singularly elected by King Pippin and the entire assembly of the Franks, he was sent to Rome He brings Pope Stephen to Gaul: and summoned the venerable Pope Stephen to Gaul, as the prayers of all desired. He assembled the clergy and made them live within the enclosures of cloisters in the manner of a monastery, and instituted a rule for them He prescribes a rule for the clergy: as to how they should serve in the Church. He generously provided them with sufficient allowances and means of living, so that, having no need to occupy themselves with perishable affairs, they might devote themselves solely to the divine offices. He ordered that same clergy, abundantly imbued with divine law and with the Roman chant, to observe the custom and order of the Roman Church -- which up to that time had by no means been done in the Church of Metz. He ordered to be built, with the help of King Pippin, the see of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr and his altar and chancels, the presbytery, and arches all around. He adorns the cathedral church. Likewise in the church of the Greater Blessed Peter he ordered a presbytery to be made. He also constructed an ambo adorned with gold and silver, and arches surrounding the throne before the altar itself. Furthermore, he built a monastery in the parish of Blessed Stephen, in the district of the Moselle, in honor of the most blessed Apostle Peter, He builds the monasteries of Saint Stephen and Gorze, and enriched it with great resources, and established monks there and united them in one charity under the rule of the holy Father Benedict. He also constructed another monastery, which is called Gorze, where in a like manner he assembled no small multitude of monks. He receives the bodies of three saints; Finally, he requested from Pope Paul three bodies of holy Martyrs, namely that of Blessed Gorgonius, which rests at Gorze, and that of Blessed Nabor, which is deposited in the Hilariacum monastery, and that of Blessed Nazarius, which he placed beyond the river Rhine in the monastery called Lorsch, having built a basilica of marvelous beauty in honor of that same Martyr. This estate Chilliswindis, a religious woman, and Cancro her son, had formerly conveyed to the same Bishop Chrodegang for the benefit of Blessed Stephen. For this blessed man was generous in alms, most pure in charity, a host of guests and pilgrims. But since it would take long to recount in order the good deeds he performed, let it suffice to have touched upon these few from among many. He consecrated very many bishops in various cities, likewise presbyters and deacons and the other Ecclesiastical Orders, as is the custom of the Roman Church, on the Saturdays of the four Ember seasons of the year. He was Bishop for 23 years, and died on March 6. He governed the Church of Metz for twenty-three years, five months, and five days. He died on the day before the Nones of March in the days of King Pippin. He rests in the monastery of Gorze, which he himself built from the foundations." So much from Paul the Deacon, who immediately concludes his treatise on the Bishops of Metz thus: "Here now, most holy Father, the series of the narrative awaits your beatitude. But I, not unmindful of my inadequacy, do not dare to attempt what must be set forth in a grander style concerning the praiseworthy course of your life."

Section II. The name, homeland, and office of Referendary of Saint Chrodegang. His illustrious lineage. Some opinions rejected.

[3] What is certain and undoubted about Saint Chrodegang is contained in the epitome of his life already given, to which some things must be added for greater clarity. First, his name is written in a remarkably varied manner: His name written variously. for he who is commonly called Chrodegang or Grodegang is written by the already-cited Paul the Deacon as Grodegang, by others as Chrodegang, Khrodegang, Crothgang, and even Ruodgang, Rutgang, Ruggand, and perhaps Droctegang. He is then said to be a native of the district of Hesbaye. In the division of the kingdom of Lothair between his uncles, Ludwig of Germany and Charles the Bald of France, made in the year 870, four counties in Hesbaye were attached to the kingdom of Charles. Hesbaye, his homeland. Hesbaye or Hasbania was formerly a quite extensive region, through that part of present-day Brabant which around Louvain was formerly subject in ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Bishop of Liege, together with the neighboring large part of that diocese. Not far from Tienen, in the prefecture of Geet under the town of Landa, can be seen a double Hasbanum, upper and lower, from which that region seems to have received its name. The said Landa was a town of Blessed Pippin, Duke and Mayor of the Palace of the Kings of Austrasia, where he was also buried, but later translated thence to Nivelles, as we said in his Life on February 21, and some things will be said in the Life of his daughter Saint Gertrude on March 17. Another daughter of Blessed Pippin was Saint Begga, whose sacred day is December 17; she, married to Ansegisel, bore him Pippin the Stout or of Herstal, father of Charles Martel, in whose palace Saint Godegrand was nurtured The office of Referendary, in the year 737. and served as his Referendary. He certainly subscribed to the charter by which Charles donated Clichy to the monastery of Saint Denis in this way: "Crotgang, having been ordered, I acknowledged this letter of donation. Done on September 17 in the fifth year after the death of King Theoderic." This is the year of Christ 737 or the one next following.

[4] But about his family there is somewhat greater controversy. He is said by Paul the Deacon to be "the son of his father Sigrammus and his mother Landrada, born of Frankish stock of the highest nobility." The monks of Gorze, Landrada his mother was not a daughter of Charles Martel, in order to favor their holy founder, seem to have wished to derive him from the lineage of the said Charles Martel, as if the mother of Saint Godegrand, Landrada, had been a daughter of Charles by his first wife Rotrud. But the said Paul the Deacon would not have been silent about this. Then the dates of Charles himself and of Saint Godegrand stand in the way. For, as the history written by order of Childebrand and appended to Fredegar has in chapters 103 and 104, "Pippin begot Charles from Alpheida, and the boy grew elegant, and he became outstanding. In those days King Childebert died," The ages of both do not permit it, namely in the year 711. Then when his father Pippin of Herstal died on December 16 of the year 714, Charles, still a youth,

was held in custody by Plectrude, from whom he was freed at the time when King Dagobert III died and Chilperic, previously a cleric called Daniel, was made King — events which occurred in the year 715. Then in the following year wars were waged between Chilperic and Charles Martel with losses suffered on both sides; but in the year 717, when Chilperic was defeated at Vinchy on March 21 and escaped in flight to Aquitaine, the victorious Charles seems to have taken Rotrud as his wife, who is reported to have died in the year 725 in the brief Frankish Annals of the monastery of Saint Nazarius, first published by Freher, then by André du Chesne in volume 2 of the Writers of Frankish History, page 3. But even if it be said that Landrada was born before Carloman and Pippin, indeed in the year 718, and that she afterwards married Sigrammus and bore Godegrand in the sixteenth year of her age, how could the latter, barely three years old in the year 737, have acknowledged as Referendary of Charles Martel the letter of donation?

[5] Meanwhile a charter of Gorze is produced from Meurissius, On the Bishops of Metz, page 168, with this opening: "I, Grodegang, together with the will of the most illustrious Pippin, Pippin the King, uncle of Saint Godegrand in the corrupt Gorzian charters, renowned King of the Franks, OUR UNCLE, and with the consent of all our Peers, etc." But in the manuscript Chartulary of Gorze the same opening is exhibited with which Meurissius on the preceding page had published another charter of donation with this better formula: "I, Chrodegang, although unworthy — if not in deed, at least in name — by the grace of God Bishop of Metz, together with the leave and will of the most illustrious man Pippin, renowned King, our Lord, and with the consent of all our Peers, etc." And here "our Lord," that is, Master, for which the name of uncle was ineptly inserted above. Moreover Pippin himself in another charter of foundation on page 166 asserts that he donates, admonished by the prayers of the venerable Archbishop Chrodegang, with no mention added of any blood relationship, as is usually done. Meanwhile on the same page 166 this testimony from an ancient parchment is published: "Khrodegang, a most illustrious hero of the royal Carolingian family, nephew of Pippin through his sister Landrada, first Referendary or Chancellor of the kingdom of France under the Kings..." then "Bishop of the august Basilica of Mediomatricum, etc." Buchet, in the proofs for the second lineage of the royal family of the Kings of France, supplied what was perhaps omitted because it could not be read due to age, and wrote "under King Pippin," although from what has already been said it is manifest that he was Referendary of Charles Martel. Furthermore, that manner of writing "of the royal Carolingian family" is not so ancient, and began to be introduced at least under the third lineage of the Capetians for greater distinction. Then Charles and Pippin were not Kings before Saint Chrodegang assumed the episcopate. Finally, on page 164 there exists an endowment by which King Pippin endowed the church of Gorze on the day it was dedicated: but it is very ineptly interpolated, beginning thus: "Therefore, when the said monastery was completed, and twelve religious together with the Abbot were ordained and provided with necessities, the same Bishop Chrodegang, urged by ecclesiastical necessity, set out for Rome: and just as first, to anoint King Pippin, he had brought the blessed Pope Stephen to France, so also then for ecclesiastical utility he brought the holy John, the Apostolic one, to Alemannia; as also the fictitious Pope John. and at Mainz he caused a Council to be celebrated with many Bishops. Therefore, when all things for which the Apostolic one had come were accomplished, the venerable Bishop brought him together with the King his uncle and many Bishops to Gorze by his prayers, to bless the aforesaid monastery." But who was the Roman Pontiff called John at that time, when in the fifty years already elapsed — indeed, not even in the hundred years following — did any Pontiff named John sit? After Stephen III died in the year 757, his own brother Paul I succeeded, who died in the year 767, and thus was alive in the year 761, when the Church of Gorze is established as having been dedicated. Nor is there any trace of a journey undertaken by the said Paul toward Germany, or of any Council held at Mainz at that time. All of which, together with the King as uncle, can be judged to have been inserted without foundation, and indeed before the time of Sigebert, the monk of Gembloux, who confesses that in his early youth he lived at Metz in the church of Saint Vincent to instruct boys: whence what he there copied, Sigebert and others rashly followed, he later inserted into his Chronicle at the year 758 in these words: "Walpert, Abbot in Italy, and Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, nephew of King Pippin through his sister Landrada, flourish in Gaul; he founded the monastery of Gorze in the diocese of Metz." Sigebert was copied by Vincent of Beauvais, book 23 of the Mirror of History, chapter 158, and followed everywhere by others, especially writers of the royal family — the Sainte-Marthes, Buchet, and the like.

[6] François Lanovius, On the Holy Chancellors of France, in the notes to the Life of Saint Godegrand, thinks that Landrada was a sister of Pippin the Stout, or of Herstal, and therefore a daughter of Ansegisel and Saint Begga. But from mere conjecture we do not dare to assert this. Whether Landrada was a sister of Pippin of Herstal. The dates indeed agree, so that he could then have been Referendary in the palace of Charles Martel. But many could have lived who were of the first nobility of the Franks, which is all that Paul the Deacon said. The same Lanovius adds that from the same house there was a Saint Landrada, Virgin and Abbess, whose Life, written by Abbot Theoderic, Surius described at July 8: not the mother of Saint Landrada, nor does it seem improbable that she was a sister of Saint Godegrand, since she is also said to be a granddaughter of Pippin, and therefore can be believed to have borne her mother's name. Whence also Buchet makes Landrada the Virgin a sister of Saint Godegrand, daughter of Sigrammus and Landrada. But Saint Landrada is said to be a granddaughter of Blessed Pippin of Landen and Saint Arnulf, Mayors of the Palace of Chlothar II; then, inflamed by the virtues of Saints Remacle and Trudo, she left her homeland, and finally died in the time of Saint Lambert the Bishop around the year 680 or 690, and therefore should be considered rather an aunt or great-aunt of the other Landrada than a daughter. The brother of Saint Godegrand, or Rutgang, seems to have been Gundeland, the first Abbot of the monastery of Lorsch, Brothers of Saint Godegrand: Gundeland, Abbot of Lorsch, in whose Chronicle, published by Marquard Freher, it is said that Rutgang placed Gundeland, HIS BROTHER, over it, "IN ALL THINGS LIKE HIS BROTHER," and that Gundeland governed the place entrusted to him by his brother with the utmost industry and observance of religion, and that Gundeland rightfully possessed what had been conferred upon him by HIS BROTHER without contradiction. And Charlemagne in the eighth year of his reign, the year of Christ 776, acknowledges that Gundeland was present and stated that Williswinda or Cancor had handed over or confirmed to HIS BROTHER, the Lord Archbishop Ruodgang. And afterwards in the year 779, Gundeland is reported to have laid down the burden of the flesh and migrated to the heavenly realms. Concerning the descendants of another brother of Saint Godegrand, Thegan writes the following in the Deeds of the Emperor Louis the Pious, number 4: "The aforesaid Louis, after he reached maturity, and father of Ingorram, father-in-law of Louis the Pious, betrothed to himself the daughter of the most noble Duke Ingorram, who was the son of the brother of Rutgang the holy Bishop. The aforesaid maiden was called Irmingard, whom by the counsel and consent of his father he made Queen, and from her he had three sons while his father was still living, of whom one was called Lothair, another Pippin, and the third bore his own name, Louis." The Emperors, Kings, and Princes descended from these are everywhere well known. Indeed, their sister is believed to be Adelais, from whose second marriage with Robert the Strong was born Robert, father of Hugh the Great, from whom was descended Hugh Capet, King of the Franks, and all the remaining Kings down to the present time.

Section III. The Embassy of Saint Godegrand to Pope Stephen III. Acts for the Restoration of Ravenna and Other Cities. Bodies of Saints Obtained from Paul I. Monasteries Built.

[7] Our Brower, in book 7 of the Annals of Trier, under Archbishop Hildolf, writes the following: "Chrodegang or Chrodegangus, Bishop of Metz during these days, and great in Austrasia for the conduct of affairs and for ecclesiastical worship and monasteries, having entered into a certain contest of liberality with himself, Made Bishop of Metz added a remarkable distinction to his metropolis by wonderfully enlarging and adorning them: he left a name most worthy of immortal praise in the Church of Metz on account of the greatness of his merits. Wherefore all the greater effort had to be made lest so great a virtue should lie longer in darkness. And I observe that his name was scarcely known to foreigners, and Anastasius the Librarian, in his account of Stephen, salutes him as a most holy Bishop, though with a distorted name." He was made Bishop of Metz around the Kalends of October in the year 742, around the year 742, when Pippin, together with his brother Carloman, presided over the kingdom of the Franks without any other King, so that for this very reason he is said by Paul the Deacon to have merited the pontifical dignity in the times of King Pippin. The rest will be more fully established below, when we treat of his death.

[8] Concerning his journey to Pope Stephen, the following is read in the Chronicle of Lorsch: "Among other very memorable deeds, summoning Pope Stephen to Gaul and girding Pippin with all the forces of the Franks against the tyranny of the Lombards, he devoted constant zeal and effort to having the exarchate of Ravenna and many patrimonies of Blessed Peter restored to the Roman See. Sent to Rome to Pope Stephen, Anastasius the Librarian, in his account of Pope Stephen, touches on some things. 'There was sent to Rome by King Pippin,' he says, 'Rodigang the Abbot' (this is Saint Chrodegang), 'through whom he promised that he would fulfill every wish and petition of the aforesaid King... And when the city of Rome and the strongholds near it were more vehemently oppressed by the Lombards, the envoys of King Pippin were immediately present — Rodigang the Bishop and Duke Autchar — in order to lead the aforesaid most holy Pope, as he had sent to request, to his King of France. He leads him out to King Aistulf, Then the same most blessed Pope set out from this city of Rome to Blessed Peter the Apostle on the 14th day of the month of October, in the 7th indiction... After the Pontiff entered the city of Pavia and was presented to King Aistulf, he bestowed many gifts upon him, beseeching with tears that he would return the Lord's sheep which he had taken away, and restore to each his own: but he was by no means able to obtain this. The aforesaid envoys of the Franks, moreover, pressed upon the same Aistulf to allow the Pope to proceed to France... To this end, in the presence of Bishop Rodigang, he asked him whether he wished to go to France. The Pope replied to him, thence to France, 'If it is your will to release me, it is entirely my will to go.' Then... on the 15th day of the month of November of the aforesaid 7th indiction, having departed from the city of Pavia, he set out for France... all the way to the palace with the King, on the 6th day of the month of January, on the most sacred solemnity of the Apparition of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: and there, sitting together within the oratory, the Pope tearfully besought the most Christian King to arrange the cause of Blessed Peter and the Roman Republic through a peace treaty. The King immediately satisfied the same Pope by oath... he took care to proceed to the venerable monastery of Blessed Dionysius for wintering... After some days the same King Pippin, by the grace of Christ, was anointed by the same most holy Pope together with his two sons as Kings of the Franks..."

[9] Furthermore, Pippin, as a truly faithful servant of Blessed Peter and obedient to the Pope's admonitions, sent his envoys to King Aistulf, and twice and a third time entreated him, promising him many gifts, if only he would restore to each his own: but Aistulf delayed to obey. Whether the one sent repeatedly to Aistulf was Saint Godegrand, Wherefore the same outstanding King of the Franks, seeing that he could not soften his stony heart, decreed to make a general campaign against him. And when the columns of the Frankish armies were already marching through nearly half the journey, again the same most holy man besought the most benign King Pippin to send once more to the most savage Aistulf, King of the Lombards, if in some way he could at last calm his savagery and would most wholesomely persuade him to restore to each his own, without the shedding of human blood. And so it was done, and again the same most benign King of the Franks sent his envoys to the same Aistulf... But rather, on the contrary, he directed threats and indignation toward the aforesaid Pontiff and the most excellent King Pippin and all the Franks." These things are recorded there, which were done in the year 753 and the following year. Then, as Einhard says in the Annals, King Pippin entered Italy with a strong force, besieged Haistulf, King of the Lombards, in the city of Pavia, and received hostages for the restoration of what had been taken from the Roman Church. When these were given... as the Annals of Saint-Bertin and others report, Pope Stephen was escorted back to the Holy See by the envoys of the Lord King Pippin — Fulrad and the rest who were with him. But when King Aistulf rebelled in the year 755, Pavia was again besieged, He labors for the restoration of the cities, and Ravenna was restored to the Apostolic See together with twenty other cities, as was said on February 17, Section 2, in the Life of Saint Fulrad the Abbot, who was placed in charge of this restoration with supreme authority: Saint Godegrand also devoted constant zeal and effort, as has already been said from the Chronicle of Lorsch, and is confirmed by what will be said next.

[10] The same Chronicle of Lorsch begins thus with Saint Godegrand: "In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 764... Cancor, the illustrious Count of the district of Rheims, together with his mother, the religious and God-pleasing Williswinda, widow of Count Rupert, founding a monastery at Lorsch, on the island which is now called Altenmünster, committed it to the venerable Rutgang, Archbishop of the Church of Metz, to establish there the service of monastic profession, He receives the governance of the monastery of Lorsch, subjecting it to the jurisdiction or dominion of no bishopric or anyone else: but because they could not accomplish this by themselves, they commended it to him as a kinsman and at that time a man most distinguished in the affairs of God, to be completed and governed under the title of a grant... The reverend Bishop Rutgang therefore gladly embraced the wish and petition of the venerable Williswinda and her son Cancor; and since he could not carry out the care and governance of the monastery himself (being constantly occupied with both ecclesiastical and royal affairs), he placed over that place Gundeland, his own brother, a very prudent man of holy life, in all things like his brother, He transfers it to his brother, and commended it with all its appurtenances to his administration under the same terms in which they had been handed over to himself. He also sent brothers of mature age and counsel, God-fearing men — Reginfrid and Ulwin with fourteen others — from the monastery of Gorze (which he himself had previously built), furnishing them with all necessities both in food and in other provisions."

[11] "Meanwhile, having sent legates to the Apostolic See, for whose liberation from the oppression of King Haistulf of the Lombards he had labored with great persistence, he sought from Pope Paul the bodies of holy Martyrs, He receives from Pope Paul in whose honor he might consecrate the churches of the monasteries he had built. The Apostolic Pontiff, pursuing his devotion and merit toward the Roman Church with due favor, three bodies of Saints, sent him Saints Nazarius, Nabor, and Gorgonius, delivered through Williharius, Bishop of Sion, to the monastery of Gorze. When a year had elapsed, he placed Saint Gorgonius in the Church of Gorze and Saint Nabor in the Church of Hilariacum; but he destined Blessed Nazarius for the monastery of Lorsch. To meet his arrival, the entire province all at once, and the people of both sexes — youths and virgins, He destines Saint Nazarius for Lorsch, old men with the young — rushed in crowds all the way to the forest called the Vosges, and the most noble Counts Cancor and Warin and the other illustrious and distinguished men of that region received the treasure of the blessed body, divinely destined for them, on their own shoulders; and with hymns and spiritual canticles, with an infinite multitude of people following, they bore it all the way to the place provided by heaven. But because the bosom of that island, being quite small and narrow, was not sufficient for the reception of so great a multitude and the daily throng, and the site of the place itself was not entirely suitable for a monastery that would later be of such great name and dignity through the merits of its Martyr, He causes the monastery to be transferred to another place, the wishes of all were the same, and the same was their judgment: that both the monastery and the church structure should be transferred to a higher place, as can now be seen, and greatly enlarged. The execution of this matter was strictly enjoined upon Abbot Gundeland by the venerable Bishop, and was carried out by him energetically and magnificently. For not long after, the Bishop, taken from human affairs, migrated to the Lord — an outstanding man of incomparable merit, to be extolled with all praises."

[12] Concerning the translation of these Martyrs, Lambert of Schafnaburg, Marianus Scotus, the author of the Annals of Fulda, and others write at the year 765, and Sigebert of Gembloux at the preceding year 764 in these words: "Bishop Chrodegang translated the bodies of the Martyrs Gorgonius, Nabor, and Nazarius from Rome to Gaul: and he placed Gorgonius at Gorze, Nabor in the monastery of Hilariacum, The body of Saint Nabor he gives to Hilariacum, and Nazarius he deposited in the monastery of Lorsch, which the illustrious Count Canthuyr had founded and handed over to the Church of Metz in the preceding year." Nabor and Nazarius are venerated on June 12, having suffered martyrdom at Rome on the Appian Way together with Saints Basilides and Cyrinus in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. Concerning the monastery of Hilariacum, or Helera, now called the monastery of Saint Nabor on account of the relics brought there, we treated above in the Life of Saint Fridolin, whom the monks acknowledge as their first founder. Concerning the monastery of Gorze, and Saint Gorgonius at Gorze, founded by Saint Chrodegang, we treated at length in the Life of Blessed John, Abbot of Gorze, on February 27, Section 1, which is not to be repeated here. Saint Gorgonius, whose body is preserved there, is venerated on September 9. Saint Godegrand brought the body to Gorze in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 765, in the third indiction, on the fourth day before the Ides of March, as the ancient Gorzian records themselves attest, and the solemnity of this Translation is inscribed in certain sacred calendars on that day.

Section IV. Time of his See, Death, Sacred Cult, and Other Collected Items.

[13] Saint Godegrand, as Paul the Deacon attests, governed the Church of Metz for twenty-three years, He dies in the year 766, five months, and five days: namely from the Kalends of October, as we said above, of the year 742, to this March 6 of the year 766. Thus, not long after the already-mentioned bodies of Saints had been translated, the Chronicle of Lorsch indicates that he migrated to the Lord. Indeed, in the manuscript Chronicle of Sigebert, which is preserved in the library of the Queen of Sweden, after the account of the Translation of the said bodies, it is added: "Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, died" — that is, since after the translation of Saint Gorgonius, the bodies of Saint Nabor to Hilariacum and of Saint Nazarius to the monastery of Lorsch were conveniently translated in the same year 765, those who were accustomed to begin the year from Easter necessarily referred the day of March 6 to the preceding year, which for us is the year 766.

[14] In the Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of Metz, at March 6, his memory is celebrated thus: Inscribed in martyrologies at March 6, "At Metz, the deposition of Saint Grodegang, Archbishop and Confessor." Molanus has the same in his Supplement to Usuard. But Hermann Greven, Canisius, and Ferrarius call him only a Bishop. In the manuscript Florarium the following is found: "In the city of Metz, of Saint Crodegang, Bishop and Confessor of the same city. He translated the bodies of the holy Martyrs Gorgonius, Nabor, and Nazarius from Rome to Gaul, in the year of salvation 764. In the following year this blessed Bishop died." Molanus, in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, composed a eulogy from the book about his Life, which however he asserts he had not read, but that many things are cited from it in century eight, chapter ten. In that eulogy he reports that Landrada, the mother of Saint Godegrand, was a sister of King Pippin, whether he studied as a youth in the monastery of Saint Trudo? which we rejected above. Then that Saint Godegrand devoted himself to letters and piety first in the monastery of Saint Trudo, then at Metz: which Miraeus in the Belgian Calendar, Fisen in the Flowers of Liège, and Saussay in Christian Gaul copy from there. We find nothing about this matter in the manuscript Chronicle of Saint Trudo, in whose book 2, chapter 9, it is said that Godegrand, Bishop of Metz, once came to the town of Sarcinium for the benefit of his Church: from among whose servants a certain boy had deserved the punishment of correction for some offense, and fearing that he would be disciplined with harsher beatings, he fled to the monastery of Saint Trudo; the Bishop's household servants, pursuing him with rash boldness and desiring to drag him out by force, broke down the doors of the church: on account of a miracle performed there, against them the right hand of the Most High immediately resisted, and a fiery thunderbolt falling from heaven lit the candles standing by the sacred altars, and the presumptuous perpetrators of such violence, struck with terror, were by no means able to lay hands on the offender. The devout holy Bishop therefore, in testimony of so great a miracle, remitting the boy's fault, devoted to Saint Trudo, rebuked his attendants for the invasion of so celebrated a monastery, and commending himself in his prayers to the holy Patron Trudo under such a defensible protection, imploring pardon, he returned to the city of Metz.

[15] Molanus further reports that he received the pallium, the insignia of an Archbishop, and the power of ordaining Bishops throughout all of Gaul, from Pope Stephen, which are read from the Gorzian Codex in Meurissius, page 166 — which likewise Saussay, whence he was called Archbishop, Miraeus, Fisen, and others copy. And they think that the name of Archbishop adhered to him from this, which Lanovius judges to have been conferred on account of the dignity of his birth.

[16] François Rosier, in volume 3 of the Genealogies of Lorraine, Historical chapter 53, folio 155 near the end, has the following: "Gundegrannus, Bishop of Metz, built the choir and sanctuary of the church of Metz, paved the church of Saint Peter; He benefits the church of Metz and the monastery, there he set up stalls, adorned them with gold and silver, endowed the monastery, and established Brothers in it, in which afterwards nuns rendered worship to God." Then near the end of the following page: "The church of Verdun," he says, "burned together with its documents and ecclesiastical treasure, for whose restoration Gondegrannus of Metz and Jacob of Toul, the Bishops, expended a great sum of money." and the church of Verdun, destroyed by fire: This Bishop Jacob subscribed in the year 756 to the donation made by Saint Grodegang to the monastery of Gorze. Concerning this fire of the church of Verdun, and the assistance rendered by the said Bishops,

Richard Wassebourg also treats in his Magdaleum under the 23rd Bishop of Verdun.

[17] Ghinius inscribed him among the Holy Canons: but he blunders when in place of Hesbaye he writes Spain, in which he would have been born of illustrious stock. The rule which Paul the Deacon indicated above was written by him for the clergy, distinguished into 86 chapters, was published by Luc d'Achery in volume 1 of the Spicilegium, and he calls it the Rule of Canons: in whose Preface Saint Godegrand asserts He wrote a Rule for the clergy. that he wished, compelled by necessity, to make a small decree, by which the clergy might restrain themselves from illicit things, put aside vicious practices, and abandon evils long and widely adopted, so that when the mind is emptied of habitual vices, good and excellent things might more easily be implanted. He adds: "Intent upon the Sacred Scriptures, we decree that all should be of one mind, assiduous in the Divine Offices and sacred readings, and prepared for obedience to their Bishop and Provost, as the canonical order demands, joined in charity, bound together by good zeal and most fervent love, removed from quarrels, scandals, and hatreds, etc." D'Achery observes in his preface to this Spicilegium addressed to the Reader that the Fathers of the Council of Aachen, held under Louis the Pious, esteemed this rule of Godegrand so highly that whatever was conducive to the canonical formation of clerical morals, they transferred to their own decrees, though suppressing his name. As d'Achery everywhere indicates in his marginal notes, he also observes that many things excerpted from the Rule of Saint Benedict are found therein.

CONCERNING SAINT HESYCHIUS THE WONDER-WORKER IN GALATIA OR BITHYNIA.

AROUND THE YEAR 790.

Hesychius the Wonder-Worker in Bithynia (Saint)

[1] The sacred memory of Saint Hesychius the Wonder-Worker is inscribed at the 6th day of March in the Great Menaia of the Greeks, and in the Lives of Saints collected from them by Maximus, Bishop of Cythera. The same, with the title "the ascetic" (τοῦ ἀσκητοῦ), is found on March 5 in the manuscript Menaia of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and of the Mazarin Library in Paris, Memory in the Calendars: as well as in the Menologion of Basil Porphyrogenitus, which is in the monastery of Grottaferrata. Indeed, also in the Syriac or Chaldaic Calendar sent to us from Rome, and in the Coptic Martyrology of the Maronite College in Rome, his commemoration is made on the 4th: but in all of these, besides the bare name, you will find nothing, except that certain printed and manuscript copies have these additional verses about him:

"Having given yourself, Hesychius, to a quiet life (Δοὺς σύχῳ ἑαυτὸν Ἡσύχιε Βίῳ), when the end arrived, you depart quietly from life (Τέλους φθάσαντος ἡσυχάζεις ἐκ βίου)."

[2] That the surname of Wonder-Worker was not without substance is shown by the miracles, the name of Wonder-Worker: some of which are narrated in the eulogy that we give here, to relieve the desire for a longer Life, which we believe once existed and perhaps still lies hidden somewhere. From this we also learn that Hesychius's homeland was Andrapena, a small district of Pontic Galatia, named after Andrapa or Antrapa of Ptolemy (Ortelius in his Thesaurus calls it Neoclaudiopolim), lying at nearly equal distance from Ancyra, homeland Andrapena: the city of Galatia, and Amasea: whose Bishop, named Theophylactus, successor of that Daniel who is read to have subscribed his name several times to the sixth ecumenical synod, more fittingly placed the sacred body of Hesychius beside the altar in the year of the Christian era 808. Whether in his own city of Amasea, or in the city of Adrania near which he lived, or in the royal city of Constantinople itself, from which the Menaia were generally received — who could say? For the eulogy is silent about the place of death and burial; and it only says that his body, wrapped by those present and placed in a stone coffin, was deposited "near the lordly gate" (πλησίον τῆς δεσποτικῆς πύλης).

[3] The "lordly gate" (Πύλη δεσποτική) signifies to me that gate which in Greek churches, having screens on either side from the sanctuary or inner areas designated solely for the sacrifice, the Lordly Gate at which he was buried: led into the solea and the front part of the temple, called by the more common term "holy" (ἁγία), because through it "the holy things" (τὰ ἅγια) were brought out to the people, arranged in orderly fashion at the step of the solea to receive the communion of the Eucharist: and sometimes "royal" (βασιλική), says Goar on the Euchologion — why not also "lordly" (δεσποτική) for the same reason? — because through it, namely, the King of kings and Lord of lords has his passage. From this place, however, to which people of both sexes — at least those about to communicate — were permitted to enter, Theophylactus transferred the sacred treasure to a more sacred place, forbidden to all laypeople and even to consecrated women, and placed it at the right side of the altar itself: not within the tribune or apse constructed around the altar (as I think), but at the wall between it and the sacristy (σκευοφυλάκιον).

[4] Adrania, the city near which he dwelt: Moreover, Adrania, near which Hesychius had his oratory, is a city of Bithynia not far from Prusa, says Leunclavius in Ortelius — called Edrenos by the Turks: which you should take care not to confuse with Adrane, a city of Thrace: for each is accurately distinguished in the above-cited Council, and the Bishops of each — Nicephorus of the latter and Sisinnius of the former — are found to have subscribed at various sessions of it. But the mountain called Maio, which is said to have been near this city and which afforded Saint Hesychius the convenience of desired solitude and quiet, the eulogy from the manuscript, and a suitable place for building an oratory — we have read its name nowhere else: and therefore we owe all knowledge of it and everything else pertaining to Saint Hesychius to the source from which we received the eulogy: a manuscript six-month synaxarion, certainly most accurate and supplying countless gaps of the Great Menaia, both in versicles and eulogies: which we deemed a great treasure to have found at Dijon in the possession of our Pierre-François Chifflet of the Society of Jesus, after the pages, separated from one another as far as was permitted, allowed us to discover of what merit and quality it was.

[5] For what is praised of Saint Ephrem for doing by a most wise stratagem in the books of Apollinaris — received in a marvelous manner, rendering them useless by gluing their pages together — this had happened to this most unfortunate codex by unhappy chance, so that it was not so much a book to those handling it as a mass of leaves firmly glued to one another: for the water which had once soaked the entire book, dissolving the gummy consistency of the thick and very old paper, after it evaporated and dried, had left the pages so fixed to each other that from them, barely separated with much tearing and damage, it was a wonder that any coherent text could be obtained. But this was next to miraculous, and doubtless to be ascribed to the honor of the Saints who favor their own cause: that having begun the transcription with the plan of excerpting only what seemed to be missing from the printed Menaia, we found either entirely intact, or healable by prudent conjecture, everything that contained the name or eulogy of a Saint not to be found elsewhere. One would have said that the leaves had not been torn apart hastily and indiscriminately, but that greater care and caution had been exercised with those that concealed something useful: for the rest, although they could nowhere be read in their entirety, nevertheless displayed enough of themselves that, by comparison with other copies, it could be clearly discerned what they had contained about whom. We judged that this could not unfittingly be related here, to the commendation of this Saint, whom we present first from that codex.

LIFE

From the Manuscript Greek Synaxarion of Pierre-François Chifflet, S.J.

Hesychius the Wonder-Worker in Bithynia (Saint)

[1] This celebrated and great servant of God, Hesychius, Hesychius, a native of Andrapena, properly instructed from his very cradle, and having scorned earthly comforts, became a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, aspiring to the enjoyment of the heavenly Sion: wherefore, a voluntary exile from his homeland, he sought the solitary places. For, born in the region of the Andrapenians, he betook himself to the sea that washes Adrania, according to the command of the God who called him, despite the resistance of demons, where, when he had ascended the mountain called Maio, the demons inhabiting the place, suspecting that this man would be their destruction, attempted by fraud to lead the Saint away from those borders to another place. For they used John and Hilarion as instruments suited to the task: through them they inquired of him what desire for a place had drawn him to come. But when he unhesitatingly pointed out the same place, those malevolent ones, contradicting him, said: "Surely, O man, being ignorant of the wretched state of this place, you are heading toward your present death: for it is a resort of wild beasts and robbers, and whoever has dared to approach it until now has not enjoyed the use of this light for even a single day's space."

[2] The Father collected his thoughts at these words in meditation, and marking his ear, taught inwardly by the Spirit, he recognized He fixes his seat on Mount Maio: that it was not a natural voice, but that of demons speaking through their mouths: and by the power of the Cross of Christ he drove the incorporeal tenants from those bodies. Then indeed, following God as his guide, he withdrew to a certain part of the mountain, and establishing a right rule of living, he began to devote himself as far as he could to the cultivation of the land itself, and no less to check and repel the violent impulses of nature. It happened once that birds, bursting into that place, sought food for themselves from the plants sown there: Birds infesting his garden are killed or driven away by a miracle. and immediately present punishment followed; for as soon as they tasted them, as if they had taken poison, the birds were seen prostrate on the ground: and so when on another occasion the Father saw other birds exposing themselves to the same danger in a similar way, knowing for certain the destruction of the harmful ones, he raised his eyes to heaven and groaned within himself, as it were: "Go away," he said, "having learned henceforth to respect the labors of monks." And they, as if soothed by the Father's voice, lifting themselves on their wings into the air, departed from the place; nor did they ever afterwards presume to fly into it again.

[3] Moreover, having found water on a certain small slope, He builds an oratory of Saint Andrew: he erected there a chapel venerable to the Apostle Andrew: in which, while he was conversing quietly with his God, certain persons came leading a girl vexed by an unclean demon, and asking that he command her to be free and well: to whom he, without hesitation and aided by the power of the chief of the Apostles, immediately restored the girl free of all evil, and addressed both parents in this manner: He heals a woman possessed by a demon: "This," he said, "the Holy Spirit dictates to me — that after my death this house shall become a convent of women consecrated to God: whose efficacious prayers will put to flight all the hosts of demons from this place": and the fulfillment followed the prediction not long after that time.

[4] He raises up an ox depressed by a demon: The same our holy Father Hesychius, going forth from his cell one day by a certain divine providence, saw a certain rustic driving oxen pulling a load upon a cart: one of which, its feet somehow entangled, happened to fall miserably to the ground. The rustic immediately rushed to the spot and, making a great effort to lift the beast, accomplished no more than if it had been turned to stone. Therefore, his strength exhausted by excessive labor and exceedingly distressed by the immobility of his ox, the rustic was entirely bathed in tears, bewailing himself as wretched; Hesychius was moved by the sight with a feeling of deep compassion, and at the same time ran to the fallen ox and, stroking and observing its neck with his hand, said to it: "Get up, lazy one, and complete the rest of the journey; do not let the enemy make you a useless instrument of his wickedness." And forming the sign of the Cross over it, he caused it to rise, and it pulled the cart very gently and swiftly. The rustic was astonished beyond what can be said at these things, and giving thanks to the Saint, cheerfully held his way homeward.

[5] Always stretching himself forward toward what lay ahead, He dies piously, and subjecting the worse part to the better, this Saint was also found worthy to enjoy angelic conversation: for his departure from this life was revealed to him by an Angel of the Lord thirty days beforehand. Receiving this message with immense joy of spirit, he summoned those who dwelt with him, and impressed upon them his final instructions: among which, setting hell before their eyes as a fearsome and fiery furnace, as though he himself then feared it, he terrified all who had assembled. But as he prolonged his exhortation until midnight, a light slipping down from heaven shone upon him, and having spoken his last words, "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit," He is buried, he passed to the heavenly mansions. Those who were present wrapped his venerable body, honorable even to the Angels themselves, and deposited it in a stone coffin, He is translated, and placed it near the principal gate; while Constantine held the scepters of Empire together with his mother Irene.^a In the year six thousand three hundred,^b Theophylactus, governing the bishopric of Amasea, translated the sacred treasure of the most blessed Hesychius to the right side of the altar, where it is shown to all to be reverently honored to the present day.

^a Therefore between the years 780 and 797, when, having reduced her son to order, Irene began to reign alone in her own right.

^b According to the Alexandrian computation, which all the sacred writers of that age use: this year corresponds to the year of Christ 800 according to the Alexandrians, but to the year 808 according to the common Era which we follow. On this difference see more in the Acts of the Sabaite Martyrs, March 20.